Abstract
There is currently a great demand for service provision for the African language speakers in South Africa. The difficulties associated with assessing speakers in the absence of assessment tools in the indigenous languages is, therefore, also a pertinent concern. Within the current socio-economic climate in South Africa where test translation and adaptation is often cited as a more viable option than that of developing new tests, very few guidelines exist for the development or adaptation of valid assessment tools for culturally and linguistically diverse population groups. This article is aimed at describing the process which took place when existing English test material, in this instance, The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Revised (PPVT-R) (Dunn & Dunn, 1981) was translated and culturally adapted for the Northern Sotho population in Pretoria and surrounding areas. The findings of the research include practical examples of methodological considerations which should be taken into account while translating and undertaking cultural adaptation of test material. The newly adapted test material was also applied to a sample of 152 North-Sotho speaking pupils in the study area and the test results are discussed.
Highlights
Speech-language pathologists in South Africa are more than ever, faced with the evaluation of the African Language speaking child
The main aim was realised by means of 2 sub-aims: Sub-aim 1: The pre-experimental phase of the study was aimed at the development of a culturally fair Northern Sotho ver
PUPILS FROM DIFFERENT SCHOLASTIC YEAR GROUPS: In addition to the procedure of the original PPVT-R (Dunn & Dunn, 1981) the academic exposure of each pupil was taken into account, seeing that the researcher hypothesised that the development of receptive vocabulary within the selected test population might be more directly influenced by academic exposure than by age
Summary
Speech-language pathologists in South Africa are more than ever, faced with the evaluation of the African Language speaking child. A general need exists amongst professionals who are not knowledgeable about these cultures or languages for original tests in the African languages. This indicates the importance of the development of such evaluation instruments. Knowledge of each community's own definition of "normalcy" in language and communication is, a prerequisite for the development of original and culturally fair tests. This necessitates ethnographicallybased research on the subject of African languages and culture (Taylor, 1986). Such a research undertaking is both resource- and time-consuming (Jordaan, 1989) and the development of original tests is not always a practical option within the current South African situation
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